CRog

I’m personnally not a graffiti fan. I feel it is an form of urban subculture that had its day, and that dragging it out into the 2000’s and being amazed by the “rawness” or whatever of it is a sign of not evolving with your times. But I am still amazed at the amount of people who appreciate graffiti and consider it as a form of art.

There recently was a conversation on Kathy Grayson’s blog (you probably have to be logged into MySpace to read it) about New York artist Dash Snow who had a show at Deitch called the Hamster’s nest. The project involved covering the walls with as much shit as possible, including “graffiti” in the early sense of the word, i.e writings on walls. I personnally didn’t think that project was of much interest, but one thing that struck me on Kathy’s blog was the pictures of the guys spending days cleaning up the space. Central american looking men, face covered with masks, cleaning and making the room immaculate again. That, to me, seemed to be more of an art project than what was there before, but I couldn’t really say why.

I recently ran into a blog called the Weburbanist and specifically into this post about”Graffiti removal”. As you will see on the page, the point being made is that the art of covering graffiti is in fact a more contemporary form of art than graffiti itself! And yes, I have to say that strikes me as very true.

This picture shows some of the work, and the mimimalism of it, the randomness, has something that just seems so much more contemporary and beautiful than the stylized work of street writers.

That a look at this Flickr group that showcased the point.

Alex